On The Cold Hill's Side
by Lena Carr
Summary: Brother, I couldn't have done it without you. 1,000 words. Set mid-S3. PG-13.


**A/N at the end.**

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><p>It's late, and the evening has passed beyond the muggy heat of late summer and into something nearly bearable.<p>

He's sitting on a porch – a wide porch, looking out on a small yard and a short walk out to the road. There are other houses within view, curtains drawn and a solitary lamp, here and there.

Katydids are singing. It's a heavy year for them. Rick knows this in the same way he knows the lamps represent households in his charge, that beyond the homes are walls that are tall and strong, and that inside the house lie the four lives which mean the most to him in all the world.

Under his hand there is a pint jar of moonshine. He raises the glass, takes another sip. The hooch is raw and bitter, burning his throat.

It's better than it was last month. In a year, it might even be drinkable.

Behind him, the bedroom window is open. The room is quiet now, where there were gasps of delight, the rough rasp of a man caught up in passion, and a steady rhythmic sound like the ocean tide.

Rick leans back in his chair, comfortable and joyous in the quiet town, the drink in his jar, the bodies that lie entangled in on the broad bed beyond that window.

The katydids sing on. After a time, the screen door eases open and Shane pads out onto the porch. "Hey," he says quietly, and walks past Rick to take the other chair. He's clad only in loose sleep pants, and the nail marks on his back stand out clear.

Lori knows Shane likes that. With Rick, she has other notions.

"Can't sleep?" Shane asks, settling deep into the chair. Idly, he scratches his chest. He's always been fidgety after sex, while Rick – Lori always complained that he'd fall asleep after.

Rick shrugs. "Not sleeping right now." He's not bothered by it. "How's Lori?"

"Aw, you know, the little one is wearing her out. Went right to sleep. Said you should wake her up, though, when the baby needs changing, if'n you don't before then." Shane's grinning, and Rick knows half of it is poking at him, and the other half is Shane anticipating sleeping through the rest of the night.

"I'll do that," Rick says, because it's true, and because saying that would make Shane grin even wider.

It does, for a moment, before the smile fades. He looks over at Rick, frowning.

"C'mon, man, talk to me. Something's on your mind. Naw, don't give me that, tell your brother what's bothering you."

"I just – I was thinking," Rick says, as if that was an answer.

"About what?"

"You ever wonder, I mean," Rick's looking out at the yard, because he cannot look at Shane and say these things. "I think about what it would do to me, to lose Lori, to not have our little girl, if anything was to happen to them – to you."

"Oh, no, man, don't talk like that – nothing –but nothing – is happening to me. I have it on authority –" Shane's shaking his head, denying Rick's words, and Rick knows what's coming next from Shane and he says it with him.

"On authority from God that angels from on high are watching every last hair on your head." And now Shane's laughing, quietly. Rick sighs, laughing with him. "I know, I know."

The moment passes. Rick's sober when he goes on. "But - all our people – Hershel, Beth, Otis, all of them. Maggie, Glenn, Carol, Sophia, Dale, Andrea. What if they'd been hurt? If something had happened, walkers or some accident on the road…"

"Well, nothing did." Now Shane's growing insistent, annoyed. " We got them all here, we have a good place, it's safe, we're good, Lori's good, Judy's good, and the new one – who is gonna look like me, man, I can feel it in my bones – the new one is gonna be just fine. We got them here, brother, you and me."

Shane's confidence is a marvel. Rick's not buying it. "But –but what we hadn't? What if," – he leans forward, all but pleading, he needs Shane to understand –"What if it hadn't been _us_? If it hadn't been you and me? If Lori had died, or Carl had, or if we'd let Lori – and the baby, and Christ, just being afraid – if we'd let that ruin us? Break _us_?" He searches Shane's face. "Man, I couldn't have done it without you."

Shane snorts, brings his knuckles up to his face, and Rick knows that move, knows Shane, knows he's trying to hide.

"What, you, me? Nah, never happen. Nothing."

"Shane," he says again, because he has no other words, nothing else to cast before him.

And then Shane relents and turns toward Rick, and he's open, bare, _naked_, as Shane so rarely is, even in their bed, in the darkness with Lori between them.

"Brother. Without you, I wouldn't have wanted to." He holds Rick's eyes, holds them past bearing, until Rick relents, and sits back to stare out at the darkness. He raises the jar to his lips again and takes another sip, grimacing at the burn.

"Hey man, share." And Shane's hand drops over his, encircling the glass, drawing it from his grasp. Rick turns to look at Shane, but the other man's face is hidden by the jar, lost in shadow, and all Rick can hear is the singing of insects out in the yard.

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><p>He wakes in C Block after midnight, hugging a stinking, moldering pillow tight and close. His sheets are soaked in sweat.<p>

Two cells over, Hershel is groaning in his sleep, mumbling through the fever which may yet kill him. The baby is crying – a thin, weak wail that none of them can mend.

Ricks turns to the wall and stares at the stone with hot, dry eyes for hours, until the grey shadows of dawn creep into their night.

_end_

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><p><strong>AN:** Implied Rick/Shayne/Lori. Set mid S3. Title from John Keat's _La Belle Dame Sans Merci_. With thanks to FS for fast beta.


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